Agenda item

Report of the Town Clerk

The Sub-Committee received a report of the Town Clerk that summarised the actions from the last meeting, held on 1 February 2018.

Reporting Schedule

The Chairman noted that the proposed meeting schedule had been circulated some time ago but was awaiting confirmation from the Chamberlain’s department before meeting dates could be confirmed.  The Chamberlain explained that they would confirm these in the next few days. (2)

Public Order Open Day

The Chairman asked what the Member uptake on the event on 20 June was.  The Town Clerk agreed to confirm and feed back on this. (3)

Programme Management Capability

The Chamberlain explained that the Project Management Office within the Town Clerk’s Department were undertaking work to improve the project management across the whole organisation.  She explained that they would employ tools to ensure that project processes could be monitored and understood by those who were not finance experts.

A Member noted that meetings of the Police Accommodation Programme did not appear to have financial oversight and asked if this was now going to happen.  It was noted that the Chamberlain was now personally sitting on the project board, providing oversight especially for any major projects such as this.

A Member asked if this would apply to the IT Transformation Programme.  The Chamberlain explained that the priority would be to focus on the most major projects, with the engagement of a project/programme accountant on relevant projects though if it was felt that there was a shortfall in financial expertise on a project then they would be obliged to act.  The Member noted that the Police IT Transformation would be a significant programme and asked if this would be allocated a specific resource.  The Chairman agreed, referencing a previous report to this sub-committee that quoted a projected cost of £10-20m.  The Chamberlain confirmed that a project of this size would certainly be subject to additional financial oversight.  The Assistant Commissioner confirmed that a road map would be set out for this programme.

A Member noted that there needed to be a careful balance when financially overseeing a project to allow the project manager to retain control of the process.  The Chamberlain agreed.

Stop and Search

The Chairman explained that there were still some areas of real concern marked as “RED”, and therefore this action should not yet be marked as complete. (4)

IT Transformation Report

It was confirmed that this was planned to be submitted to the May meeting of the Police Committee.

RESOLVED – That the report be received.